As you may have read in some other threads, I've only been back on the bike for a couple of months after a 10 year + hiatus.

So I decided I need to stop making excuses and set some targets and figured that If I put them into the public arena it's another incentive to achieve them. I'm not the type of guy who kids himself, so there'll be no fiddling of the progress.

So anyway, I have made my first target the Wilson HTM Southbank to Southport ride on the 7th October. It's 100km and they expect about 5000 riders, so should be fun. It's not a race, but I have set myself the goal of completing it in 4 hours.

I started training 2 weeks ago and am gradually building on my distances. I've also included a weekly group training ride every Saturday morning on the Luke Harrop Circuit at Runaway Bay to get some experience in a bunch. It's a graded training ride on a 1.9km closed circuit for 40 minutes + 3 laps.

Is this a fairly flat ride or are there hills in this 100k's?...if you are riding in a bunch you will see your average speed go up quite alot.
After doing 4 rides a week for 6 weeks you will be feeling like a different person....

Most people talk about a 10% increase per week - you're sort of pushing beyond that. Don't forget to allow for recovery too, both recovery time off the bike and very gentle, very flat recovery rides. Your body is going to be going through a lot so give it a chance.

I'm going to be take it pretty easy. Only one of the short rides each week will be moderate/hard. The rest will be a mix of easy and easy/moderate. The aim is to increase not only increase fitness, but to get my butt used to being in the saddle for a long time.

inaminit wrote:Interesting how they base the training on minutes as opposed to km's.

Yes, noticed that. Not sure why they do this. Maybe someone has an idea.

Andrew

It is the same way that your weekly total should be looked at in time rather than km's.
If you did a week in the mountains you might only do 200k's but the time on the bike would be equal to 4-500k's on the flats.If you go by time then average speed/terrain dosen't come into the equation.
Personally I use everything (I like numbers) including Kcals...

Right, here's the first update... a day early but having tomorrow as a "recovery day", i.e. doing what every father should do tomorrow...making a pig of himself at the local pancake house for breaky!!!!

Week 3:
Target: 3 x 20km + 1x 50km = Total 110km

Rides:
10km - test ride on new bike flat, easy/moderate

32.2km - very very easy out, moderate/hard intervals home

51.1km - My first 1/2 century!!!! easy/moderate...then the insanity took over. Absolutely flogged myself over the last 12km....not a good idea! Come 3pm could barely walk. Lots and Lots of stretching, fluid and food fixed the pain.

Bluerider wrote:You'll have to burn off those extras kilos after the pancakes Well done with the above.

Good thing I'm not actually trying to loose any weight. My wife & I took up rock n roll dancing lessons almost 2 years ago, and since moving into the intermediate/advanced stuff about 12 months ago, my weight dropped from about 99kg to about 86kg about 2 months ago. In this 2 months I've been back on the bike & my weight has gone up to 92kg (pre pancake weight).

The good news is it seems that cycling appears to increases the effect of gravity - the top half is getting thinner, but the bottom half is getting bigger. Then again I was just a big fat bloke with really skinny legs!!!

Well week 4 has been a very dissapointing week. Actually more frustrating than dissapointing due to the rain for most of the week.

My target for this week was 4 rides of 20km and 1 of 60km for a total of 140km. Unfortunately I only managed to rack up 100.9 km.

Monday went out for a 20km and finished up with 21.1km (the extra 1.1 for the fathers day pancakes)

Saturday was another group training ride at Luke Harrop Circuit. could only get in 16.2km as I got there 20 minutes late. Was at a wedding in Byron Bay on Friday night and slept through the alarm, and they brought the start time forward from 7:30 to 7am. But I managed to push hard and was happy with the effort.

This morning went from home (Elanora) up the beach front to the Southport Seaway and back (63.6 km). Had a great ride up there until I hit Seaworld then the rest of the road was closed for a fun run. the policeman at the intersection was good enough to let me go through, but told me to take it easy and stay out of the runners way.

That 5 -6 km was pretty slow at about 15 - 18kph, but was a good recovery at the half way mark.

The return trip was absolutely hell with a nice southerly headwind the whole way. The worst part was I couldn't get into a decent rythym as there were short strong wind gusts about every 500m that made me feel like I'd hit the brakes.

All in all I was pretty happy, I did my longest ride yet, 63.6km in 2:35:16 with an average speed of 24.6kph. I made sure I kept well hydrated and snacked about every 10k's from 30k onward and got off the bike feeling good.

I started getting a bit of pain behind my left knee this afternoon, but been stretching and it doesn't seem to be getting any worse.

Hopefully the rain will stay away next week and I can get in 190k's (3x40 +1x70).

Well, I'm pretty happy with this weeks efforts. I managed to get in all my scheduled rides for this week, but even though I fell short of the 190km total target by 4.4km, I more than made up for it in increased intensity.

I still can't get my head around the gains I'm seeing. In particular the reduction in recovery times, and less soreness the day after a ride. Looks like scheduling actual recovery days is doing the job, even though I find it hard and have to force myself not to ride on them!

So here are the numbers:
WEEK 5
Target: 3 x 40km + 1 x 70km

Rides:
Tuesday: 43.9km in 1:38:55 avg speed of 26.6kph a good moderate intensity ride through from home through Palm Beach down to South Tweed and back.

Thursday: 40.0km in 1:28:54 avg speed of 27.0 kph - Went out for dinner on Wednesday night and woke up feeling terrible. I bit the bullet and got on the bike with no warm up or breakky. The first 8km or so I just plodded along feeling tired, lethargic and my legs just didn't want to move. Was almost going to turn around and go home, but started feeling pretty good, so decided to ramp up the intensity and have a crack at it...glad I did!

Saturday: 29.5km. Did the training ride at Luke Harrop Circuit in Runaway Bay again. Decided to park the car at a shopping centre nearby and the plan was to ride to the circuit, do the group training ride then finish off with a leisurley 10-15km. I was absolutely knackered after the session...30minutes+3 laps at an average over 30 kph (a big effort for me) and I got dropped on the second last lap, so instead of the extra km's I just rode back to the shopping centre for breakky with some of the other guys.

Yesterday: Another milestone for me... 72.2km in 2:45:56 (riding time) at an average speed of 26.1kph. Went from home up to the Southport Seaway, down to Coolangatta (about 60km) met up with the family for a choccy milkshake and a coffee, then back home.

I'll have to be waking up even earlier this week with 3 x 50km + 1 x 80km rides as the target.

Pah! How dare you set targets and meet them. That's going against everything we stand for

Good onya mate.

A good ride is a great way to recover from the night before, but you need about 10km to realise it's not a stupid idea. Well done there too.

Do you have a warm up routine? It may not be as noticeable for you youngsters, but I know that I can't just leap on the bike, ramp the heart rate up to 140 and expect to perform - if I do that, the old legs feel like lumps of wood and I have all the power of a sick kitten. This little routine was given to me by a bloke in England who nicked it off someone else, but it works (works better if you've got a HRM btw, but if not, you can sort something out).

I start off just spinning and build the HR to 120. Then I back off and let it drop back to 110 or until I get bored (whichever comes first), then I build it up to 130, and let it drop back to 120, then I build to 140 and let it drop back to 120, then 150 and let it drop back to 120. This takes about 5km and works better if the hills are in the right place, but after that, your body is warm, awake and you can power off putting full power into the pedals. If I don't do this, it can be anything up to 10km before I come on song - the bit about allowing the HR to drop back is important.

My usual warm up is about 10-25 mins of stretching, then I jump on the bike and from the driveway I have about a 15 metre flat ride to a nice little climb for the first Km. (tried to insert the route profile but the image was too big so gave up) The first 100m or so is very steep, but I've managed to now get up it without gasping too much!

Thankfully this first km is followed by a descent of about 800m then onto the flats for a proper warm up.

It's the only way out of my street, unless I carry the bike up an embankment in the park.

I tried using the windtrainer to warm up, but the missus put a stop top that. For some reason she thought it was a bit noisy at 5:30 am.